A Mother's Love
by Bluebell Flame Echo
Summary: Clark's father dies when he's twelve. Shifting through the storm cellar over some of his Dad's old things he finds a little more than he bargained for - and because of his different emotional state at first contact with the spaceship, the parent who appears suddenly to him is not the parent anyone expected. Frequent updates. Chloe/Clark, Lex/Clark, Bruce/Clark. See inside for more.
1. Part One: This Summer - Mom, Meet Mom

_Full Summary:_ _Clark's father dies when he's twelve, much earlier than in canon, back before anything major has happened at all. Shifting through the storm cellar over some of his Dad's old things, he finds a little more than he bargained for - and because of his different emotional state at first contact with the spaceship, the parent who appears suddenly to him is not the parent anyone expected._

 _Lara decides to change a few things in Clark's life for the better - a little earlier and a lot more successfully than Jor._

 _Frequent updates, so stats are not always indicative. Chloe/Clark, Lex/Clark, Bruce/Clark._

* * *

Author's Notes: Both mothers will play a major role.

Bisexuality eventually abounds. All pairings decided on so far are tagged. The ending plan is a sort of love triangle between Lex, Clark, and Bruce - one that will be resolved in ways I'll save for the end. But I gotta admit, I like Chloe and she'll be his first big love. (The Lana issue has not been forgotten and will be dealt with.) Beyond that I don't have anything pairing-wise figured out.

I shifted Clark's actual birthday a few days. Please don't send me any angry messages telling me I got the date wrong.

There will be a crossover with Nolan's Batman Begins/Dark Knight series, but that crossover will not be immediate in Clark's first high school years.

* * *

 **A Mother's Love**

Part One: This Summer - Chapter One: Mom, Meet Mom

Clark's father died of a stroke quite suddenly one day in the last months of seventh grade.

Clark was bailing hay in one part of the barn while his father was working on fixing a tractor in another part. The long golden Kansas fields, straight through into the clear blue skyline, rippled out beyond the worn old doorway of the Kent farm barn. It was a quiet day; insect sounds could be heard outside.

Dad stood up from the tractor, dusty, a long hard muscular line with a dark tan and a sunburned neck, in flannel with his shirt open. He stood there for a split second, on the wood floor amid the dirt and the hay and the animal droppings, and Clark had just looked away when he heard a horrible, gut-wrenching male scream - a kind of strangled yell, nothing like the canned screams heard in movies.

When he looked around, his Dad was already face-first on the barn floor, unmoving.

In a second, he was there. Clark was an adopted son, and he had been born with strange abilities of supernatural speed and strength - a kind of mutation, he had always suspected, that led to incredible abilities. No one knew about the powers except his parents, but Clark could do anything, save anyone from any kind of trouble they were in.

And though he was by his father's side in half a nanosecond, as he knelt and shook his father he realized there was nothing he could do about the frailties of the normal human body. He couldn't save anyone from that.

Clark was twelve.

"Dad! DAD!" A distraught, sick kind of fear had risen within him; he realized his vision was blurring not because he was about to pass out, but because blinding tears had filled his eyes. "MOM!"

It was a weird moment. Clark half stood up, and he had no idea what his face looked like; Mom turned around from her herb garden, saw Dad, screamed, and came running.

And Clark's first thought was not that his father was dead. His first, stupid thought was wondering how their tiny farm was going to afford Dad's hospital bills. For some reason, he just assumed his father - always so strong and cheerful and friendly - would be alright.

Maybe it was because it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for a toddler kid to lose two parents he didn't remember, only to be taken to a different place and raised by two more, only to have one of them die when he was twelve.

But the paramedics came, and they did declare Dad dead, there on the stretcher about to be loaded into the van. Clark's father's sunburned face was now chalky pale, his eyes closed, somehow smaller than he had always seemed in real life, more pathetic.

Anger suddenly rose within Clark - irrational anger at the paramedics, for making his father seem smaller, weaker, not invincible. "Try resuscitating him!" he demanded.

"Son, there's no point -" the paramedic tried, pained.

"WELL DO SOMETHING!"

But Mom was there, holding Clark back. "Clark," she said in a trembling voice. "Clark, no."

Clark looked away. "Damnit," he hissed under his breath through gritted teeth, and Clark didn't swear very often.

The cause of death was given as sudden stroke. They had a quiet funeral in black out in the old graveyard near the woods, a closed casket, Jonathan Kent buried in front of a gravestone. Nearly the whole town came. Clark sat silent and angry and upset, his jaw clenched, moving only to pour with his hand the first cloud of dust that fell onto the wood coffin.

They hadn't been able to pick out an expensive one. Didn't have the money. The Kents, who ran their little farm just the three of them, had never had a lot.

It all happened in one week. The stand, the scream, the fall on the face, the funeral. The suddenness of it all was surreal, almost blackly comic.

In the following weeks, Clark missed his Dad in ordinary moments a lot. When it was time for the family truck to come and pick him up from school. When the football game was on. When they threw out all the beers stashed in the back of the fridge. Mornings when the coffee pot clicked finished and no one was there to drink it. Lots of moments with chores on the farm - he would look out the window sometimes, half expecting to see Dad working on this or mending that, but there was never anyone there. When he slept in late and no one was there to tell him off. And until Dad's things were put into boxes, the jacket remained on the hook by the back screen door into the kitchen - untouched and never worked in again.

When they put Dad's things away for charities, all his flannel shirts still smelled like him.

Clark was aware of his mother's grief, however well she tried to hide it. Martha Kent reacted, not by giving the farm up, but by throwing herself into it. She hired countless workers and turned their little farm into a churning, thriving, successful business. It was weird - like the farm Clark had grown up on didn't exist anymore. He'd lost his father and his childhood home in one fell swoop. Suddenly, people were refurbishing and expanding the farmhouse, decorating it in fancy country style with lots of white and polished wood, redoing the wraparound porch Dad had built himself. The flower and herb gardens became beautiful and carefully designed, the farm expanded and sophisticated with at least ten workers crawling all over it at any given time. Clark and Martha did still do some work but more selectively; Mom began running the whole thing from her office in the farmhouse.

She was always in there. Clark stopped seeing her. And in a way, at least for a while, he'd lost his mother, too. His mother had always been brilliant, capable of more than she'd had, but she'd always seemed humble and warm-hearted, maternal and smiling, happy and content.

Now she was brisk and official and somehow older-looking. Clark knew what she was doing - she was trying to hide her grief.

He was doing the same thing. That was how he knew. Suddenly he felt distant even from himself. He had always had Dad to turn to in moments like these, Dad always gave good advice, always knew what to say, but Dad wasn't there and that was the problem. This thought was painful, so he simply walled himself off from feeling it.

He felt somehow responsible for the care of his mother, now that his father was gone, felt a kind of protectiveness for her that had not been there before. But they never discussed what had happened. In fact, over dinner at the new table (all the old stuff had mysteriously vanished) they rarely discussed anything besides concrete, stable, everyday things like farm management and school, which Clark tried to do well in if only because his Mom had enough on her mind.

So he never told her, that he felt like he'd lost everything even though he hadn't.

People at middle school didn't get it. Death was abstract for them. No one ever knew what to say. No one quite looked him in the eye anymore. Clark had his best friend, Pete, who tried to grin and tell jokes with false bravado and never, carefully never, discuss anything else.

"... Pete," Clark said at the end of that school year, "I appreciate everything you've done. But I think I need to take a summer off from… everything. Sort some stuff out." He couldn't ask Pete to go on that journey with him. "Do you think… when school's back in session we can still be friends?" he asked tentatively, looking up, as they stood just inside the big gates leading out of Smallville Junior High, the only middle school in their small Kansas farming town.

"... Yeah," said Pete with surprising understanding, clapping him on the shoulder. "Hey, it's better than what some people do, closing themselves off from everyone forever." Clark hadn't thought of it like that. "You do what you gotta do, man."

As Clark walked away for the summer, Pete called, "Clark."

Clark looked back in surprise.

Pete's expression was sober. "I'm sorry about your Dad," he said seriously. "He was a great guy. Everyone in town knew it."

"... Thanks, Pete," said Clark quietly, and he left to catch the last bus he now took.

Grief was strange. In the weeks that followed, Clark was struck by sudden memories. He felt he should be suppressing those, too - they drew up unwanted feelings - but he couldn't, somehow. Fishing in swampy rivers with his Dad, his Dad laughing as Clark waded hesitantly into the muck, teaching him the correct technique for fly-fishing. The higher than air feeling the first time Dad had taken Clark out on the tractor, back when the farm had been small and life had been simple. Clark's Dad teaching how to throw a football, the two of them standing across from each other in the backyard.

Clap. Catch.

Mom did have one thing to say after the funeral. As they were walking away from the gravestone and out of the woods to the road full of cars above the bank on the street, she said, "You know, your father's Dad died when he was young, too." Clark hadn't known this. "Your Dad didn't want to do that to his son. Especially didn't want to die with things left unsaid between you, as he had with his father. I guess we always think we have more time, because that's what happened anyway.

"That's why your Dad felt he had to take over the farm from his Dad. He wanted to go into sports, you know. He wanted to be a big-city Metropolis sports star, and he wanted me to open my own law practice there. We adopted you in Metropolis, so… you'd still have been there with us, I guess. Even if we'd come back sometimes to visit your father's family in this place."

She was speaking softly now, her eyes distant.

"I don't know. Life was supposed to turn out different," was all she said at the end. "Just… don't do what your Dad did. Don't feel like you have to be him, or take over his farm. Okay? You're amazing, Clark. You have incredible gifts, and you're brilliant. Make your own successes."

That was the most unfair part. That no matter how successful Clark was or what he did with his life, his Dad wouldn't be around to see it. Clark would never see that proud, warm smile again.

* * *

One day that summer, Clark realized the only place carrying his father's stuff that they hadn't cleaned out was the storm cellar.

He didn't really want to go down there. Didn't want to confront more of his father's things. But this was a stupid reason not to do it, and someone should have to, and it should be someone who knew Dad but it shouldn't be Mom because she was upset enough as it was.

So he opened up the storm cellar doors and crawled down the concrete steps there into the darkness. He reached for the light switch, his hand brushing against spiders, and he clicked it on. The light bulb suddenly burned bright.

Clark realized he hadn't been in here in a long time. All the big things were covered with tarp. He began tearing off dusty old pieces of tarp - old farm equipment, mostly. Then he tore off the last piece of tarp -

And sitting there was a spaceship. A tiny, real-life metallic spaceship, with a circular frontal piece for steering, sleek and aerodynamic.

Clark's first thought was "welding project," but his Dad had never been artistic or interested in science fiction, and neither had his Mom. They'd always told him they'd never been able to have kids. Was there something they weren't telling him…?

He kneeled down curiously and searchingly, running his hands over it. It occurred to him, then, that he was looking for answers. To his father, to his mother, to things left unsaid, emotions never spoken.

Suddenly, the supposed welding project shook. It began hovering a few inches off the ground, and… it glowed. A pattern on the front of the ship suddenly revealed itself and glowed.

Okay, Clark thought, standing and backing away frowning. So… not a welding project.

Then the ship opened itself up, revealing a small seat, and a strange, silver and glowing blue, slim computerized device unfolded around it on all sides. A hologram appeared hovering above the glowing blue. She was a smiling blonde woman, very pretty and alabaster pale, with long hair in a strange, loose white outfit, nothing modern but also nothing… Terran.

She spoke perfect English.

"Hello," she said, beaming warmly. Then she slumped. "... You don't know who I am, do you?"

"... No?" Clark said. "Am I… supposed to?" All his punctuations had suddenly turned into question marks. He was utterly bewildered.

"You are my son," she smiled. "From the planet Krypton. Your birth name is Kal-El."

"I'm hallucinating."

"No. You are not."

Both sentences were said with, to her credit, positively genetic matter of factness.

"Okay, so… explain this to me, then," said Clark, skeptical. "Explain to me why I'm not just hallucinating."

"Our planet was dying," said the woman, her smile fading at the sentence. "So your father and I sent you away in a spaceship, to another planet, one our people had colonized many centuries ago. It is known as Earth. Each of our minds, with everything we each thought important, was uploaded with an image of us into your ship's computer system. Who you got depended on in what emotional state you first touched the ship again.

"You were looking for answers, for emotional support. So you got your mother. My name is Lara. Lara-El. Your father was Jor. Jor-El. Of the Noble House of El.

"Our planet was set to explode just as your ship was leaving our atmosphere. Pieces of our poisoned rock must have propelled you, and been propelled with you, to Earth. There was a meteor shower, yes? The year you were adopted?"

Clark paused.

"And you don't feel well around the meteor rock, yes? It is radioactive, by the way. No one should be touching it." Lara frowned.

"No one should be… But it's in everything," said Clark, horrified. "Mom… it was sent all over the world, people have made beauty products out of it!"

"Oh… that is not good," said Lara, concerned.

"So… the meteor shower is my fault?" Clark asked hesitantly.

"Kal, you were a toddler," Lara scolded gently. "You certainly weren't in control of the ship. The computer was. And anyway, even we did not intend the meteor shower. Our apologies. Our planet was busy exploding," she said flatly.

"So… you sent me to Smallville, Kansas. Why?" Clark asked, bewildered.

"Your father knew good people there. The Kents."

"Yeah, they adopted me… They must have found me out in a field, and they couldn't have kids… Wait. They knew my father?" said Clark, bewildered. He tried to imagine his noble alien father Jor having a conversation with his human farmer father Jonathan.

It was a weird picture.

"Your grandfather, probably. We age slower. Your father crashed here accidentally a very long time ago, and cloaked himself among you as a human. He liked the people of Smallville. He says they were 'remarkably kind.' That is a direct quote." She smiled. "And the Kents were his favorites.

"As for your proof… you have supernatural speed and strength, yes? Incredible mental capabilities? Supernatural compartmentalization? Incredible ability to focus on hundreds of things at once?

"Have you discovered your invulnerable skin yet? What about your ability to perfectly master countless languages?" She smiled slyly. "And… do I not look like you?"

… She did, now that Clark looked. On the surface, they were nothing alike… but he had her nose. Her mouth. Her grace.

"I must say, you look a good deal like your father," she said, pleased. "Dark hair, square jaw, tall muscular form. But your eyes are mine."

The same blue was echoed in hers. Clark felt a great breath expand inside himself.

"... Mom," he breathed, thrilled. "I'm… my human parents called me Clark Kent." He held out his hand, beaming, pleased.

She smiled… and shook his with a fake zing of holographic electricity.

"Why… why would my parents keep this from me?" Clark wondered, slumping back against the cellar wall. And he told her everything that had been happening recently. She listened closely, frowning.

"It sounds to me," she said, "like they felt you felt different enough and had enough on your plate as it was. They took you in as we wanted - with no one left to protect you, your father sent you to Smallville, Kansas for a reason - and they even seem to have been trying to protect you from the truth. It must be a great thing, to hide yourself like that."

"It took a lot of lessons in control," Clark agreed. "And… well, my control isn't perfect. All I've ever wanted is to be a human. I guess I'm not. I can't even play contact sports, let alone have sex." He rolled his eyes, his face sour. "Too much chance I might hurt someone."

"I can help you with that," said Lara, smiling as Clark brightened. "But first… perhaps we want to talk to your mother?"

"Great. I'll bring her down -" Clark went for the cellar door, but Lara cleared her throat. He turned back to find her smiling again.

"The ship can expand into a Kryptonian home, an ice fortress," she said. "But it can also condense into a wearable piece of technology."

Suddenly, the ship folded back in on itself, countless times until it was a simple metallic watch, which zipped onto his wrist. Lara had disappeared, but then her voice came from within the watch. "Let's go," she said, and the blue faded out.

"Good idea," said Clark, looking up, his eyes hard, as he left the storm cellar. "There are a couple of things I'd like to ask my mother."

"... So you find something invaluable in the human experience?" Lara's voice came curiously as they climbed the steps again, the light flicked back off and the door closed.

"... Yeah," said Clark thoughtfully. "I do. People are always complaining about the human race… I don't know, maybe I can just see in them what they can't see in themselves. I want to protect them, not hurt them or control them. I think they're worth saving.

"Actually, until I met you I wanted to be one."

* * *

Clark walked into Mom's office; she was balancing accounts with her glasses on at her desk.

"Hey, Mom, I was in the storm cellar," he said loudly. Mom gasped, cried out, and looked up, her eyes round. "Mom," said Clark, and he pointed the watch the floor. It ejected out into a little computerized system, sans ship, and Lara's hologram appeared floating above it. "Meet my other Mom."

"Mrs Kent," said Lara, smiling and bowing her head with her hands folded as Mom stood. "What is your name?"

"M… Martha?" Like Clark before her, all of Martha Kent's punctuations had become question marks.

"Martha. Nice to meet you," said Lara, pleased.

"What… what are you…?"

"Do not worry. I would like to help Kal with himself, to control himself better and 'fit in' among these humans. I am here to help him with his goals, in this case to 'save people,' in his own words, and I am here to help him 'blend in.' The first things my Kryptonian self installed in her computerized brain were her emotional, compassionate, and ethical centers. Unusual for a Kryptonian, I will admit."

"Our planet is gone," said Clark seriously. "Short of taking over all of Planet Earth, what possible ulterior motive could she have?"

Martha relaxed fully, sitting down with a deep breath, taking her glasses off and putting her head in her hand tiredly. At last, Clark felt a twinge of guilt.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked softly, urgently. "After Dad passed away?"

"Because I didn't know what to do, Clark," she said, sitting back. "It was his wish that you not know until he felt you were 'ready.' He was trying to protect you. But what is ready? Should I tell you without him? I didn't know what to do," she admitted. "And now… and now you have a new Mom," she said thickly, looking away and trying to seem stoical. "So I guess you don't need -"

"I'll always need you," said Clark immediately, coming forward to hug her. She sniffled a little and they hugged for a few silent seconds, some of the distance between them finally bridged. "But I've got to say," Clark admitted, "we need to get better at this whole communication thing now that Dad's passed."

Martha gave a watery laugh and sat back, looking more like herself than she had in months. "Agreed," she said. "So… how did this happen, what's going on?" she asked curiously. "An entire planet… gone?"

Lara had been watching warmly, respectfully silent, but at this she spoke and she and Clark (Kal?) helped fill Martha in.

"How does a whole planet full of supernaturally powerful people… just explode and die?" Martha asked, bewildered and worried. "I mean… a whole planet full of people like Clark?"

"Well… under Earth's yellow sun and atmosphere, his abilities will be amplified," Lara clarified carefully. "But… yes, sort of.

"So here's what happened. Krypton was embroiled in a civil war; it had also begun harvesting its own planet's core for power. With all this mess, suddenly a vast cosmic power rather like a black hole began moving toward us…"

"And we didn't have the resources to stop it or leave in time," Clark realized. "We essentially destroyed ourselves."

Lara winced, looking sorrowful. "It was all a matter of what killed us first," she said quietly, looking down. "In the end… I suppose it was the core. Hence the meteor shower."

"What was it like… Krypton?" Clark asked longingly.

Lara smiled. "It was an ice planet," she said, "a fierce wilderness, with a red sun. Each Kryptonian home was its own ice fortress. We could fly and we had metallic ships, so we usually traveled with one or the other." (I can fly and I'm afraid of heights? Clark privately wondered.) "Each fighting faction and city had its own council. The El were nobles among ours, Kandor. We were a warrior people. We make flames dance before our eyes when we feel attraction and arousal, so mating dances were intricate things involving setting each other aflame."

"That sounds… deadly?" was Clark's first honest thought.

Martha was obviously trying to hold back laughter, and even the ever-calm Lara's smile had a hint of humor to it. "We are flame retardant," she said.

"... Oh. Humans aren't flame retardant. Will that be a problem?" Clark asked.

"I can help you learn to control everything," said Lara in satisfaction. "Your strength included."

Well… at least there was that.

"Kryptonians are… complicated. Though warriors as a society, our god of the red sun was one of reason and logic, things which we prize highly. Our language in written form was a complex geometrical system - a language I can teach you. We are good at suppressing our emotions, at following logical rules and systems. There was rarely any crime, for example, on Krypton. The very act of breaking established rules… it makes no sense."

"Neither does love," Martha pointed out softly.

"And therein lies the problem," said Lara, nodding once. "Kryptonians do feel things… very deeply. But we hide them, suppressing them away, compartmentalizing them. And we do not always understand the intricacies of human social interaction. For example, we deal with guilt by suppressing it. We protect people by hiding things from them. As I understand it, these are not desirable traits among humans."

"Wait… they're not?" said Clark, bewildered.

"No, Clark," said Martha gently. "They're not. For a human, to feel openly and strongly is a good thing. And to love people is to trust them to make their own decisions."

"But… what if they choose the thing that will hurt them? What if emotions can be crippling?" said Clark, frowning.

"Then that's just how it is," said Martha simply.

"Human also say one thing and think another at times. At other times, they neglect to say important thoughts and feelings at all. This has always particularly puzzled and confused me.

"Kal, I can see, is unusually human under your influence. To want to save others. To value humans. To go forward, hug you, and comfort you… a Kryptonian would not do such things," said Lara. "This, I believe, is good. And, well… I was always very emotional for a Kryptonian." She smiled self consciously. "Your father, the premiere scientist and a great Kryptonian warrior, cold and logical, married me. It was what humans call a big deal.

"I always loved too much. It was my fault."

"I don't think that's a fault at all," said Martha quietly, and the two women shared a fond smile.

"So… if Dad had appeared to me, in a moment of physical danger, he would have valued sending on very different things. Especially if I were older, this could have gone really differently," Clark guessed.

"It could have, yes," said Lara, troubled. "How old are you now?" she asked suddenly.

"Uh… twelve. I just turned thirteen in May - Wait. What is my actual birthday?" he asked excitedly.

"February 21st," Lara confirmed. "On your calendar. I have access to computer, you see," she added, smiling secretively. "So yes. Thirteen.

"I can help you, Kal," she added seriously. "I can here at the farm this summer give you physical training, teach you about your native language and your own different neurology, and give you a sort 'what to expect' of what's to come concerning powers in your future. You will learn unusually fast. I can even help you grow as a person.

"But in order for that to happen, maybe this would be best."

The computer folded up again into… a pair of square glasses. "These are hypnotic glasses," said a beeping, almost undetectable silver device near his ear. Lara's voice came from within it. "Made of special Kryptonian metal. The minute you put them on, no one will suspect you of anything remarkable, and everyone will look away from the details of the glasses.

"I can talk in your ear through here, and see through your glasses eyes. The computer, of course, can also fold out into a watch again. But I think people would notice a talking watch," she added firmly. "Is this correct?"

"Uh, yeah. It's correct," Clark admitted frankly. "So… will my Mom…?"

"People who know are immune from the hypnosis," Lara's voice confirmed.

Clark put the square glasses on - and checked in the office mirror. "I just think I look like a nerd," he admitted.

"Eh. You just need some new outfits," said Lara.

"Okay. Now you sound like a Mom," Clark confirmed. "It's cool, though - being able to go undercover. What do you think?" he added to his other Mom self consciously, pushing the glasses up his nose. "I take them on and off - I become cool and not cool."

"I think they look like they always belonged there anyway," Martha admitted, smiling. "So… keep me updated. But I say: go for it."


	2. The New and Improved Clark Kent

Chapter Two: The New and Improved Clark Kent

"First, how you appear to humans," said Lara. They were sitting in the loft Dad had built for Clark up above the barn floor (he felt a pang at the thought) with all the farm workers ordered to stay away from the newly rebuilt and fancier barn. Lara's hologram was across from him on a chair while he had taken the sofa, the window with its telescope framing them. "There are a few problem areas: Kryptonians tend to protect by hiding information, they tend not to explain themselves very well to humans, they can come across as self righteous, and they tend not to be emotional even when they should be.

"This would be the case even in a compassionate, ethical, loving Kryptonian such as yourself."

"Wow, don't be too honest," said Clark.

"No grousing," Lara warned, her eyes flashing. "Or this lesson ends."

"... Sorry," Clark admitted sheepishly.

"Very good. Now, Kryptonians hide information to control dangerous variables. Both logic and control are very important to us. They don't explain themselves because they aren't aware humans need explanations for mysterious events, let alone that humans want to be included in the first place.

"You see, revealing information is seen as a sign of trust among humans. Not telling a human the truth, even to protect them, shows you don't trust them. That's how they see it," she said when Clark opened his mouth to argue. "And they need explanations when someone suddenly just does something unusual or rude. Humans can be changeable creatures. They themselves are aware of this. As I said, they sometimes say one thing and are thinking another. So they don't entirely trust someone not to be changeable unless an explanation is given - even when we feel perhaps they should," she added, when Clark looked troubled and almost indignant. "For us, the trust issue is reversed. We count on someone knowing what we bailed for is important, in human terms.

"We come across as self righteous because we are so bent on rule following. It can even lead to what humans see as breaches of ethics. You see, to a human, all life is precious, even a life that is blatantly evil.

"And lastly, we suppress our emotions. Whereas for a human, emotional vulnerability, talking, and explanation in a genuine way fosters connection. We see emotions as interfering with logic or the goal at hand, even if it's saving someone, so we're good at ignoring them and stoically pushing past them."

And with that, they dove deep into the neurology of the Kryptonian brain, using computerized holograms as explanation. It explained a lot, Clark admitted, things he'd always known made him different from everyone else but he'd never been able to put his finger on.

"The key to this," said Lara, "is to be more authentically yourself whenever possible while trying to meet humans in the middle."

She also taught Clark the Kryptonian language. She wasn't kidding - in a very short amount of time, he could in fact speak and write it fluently alongside English. He understood more about how his brain functioned, the brilliance, fast processing, high calculation ability, and extreme compartmentalization and ability to hold out under duress. So he understood why he could learn languages so easily.

"You should be brilliant in school," said Lara frankly. "Frankly, there's no reason why you ought not to be. From what you've told me, like your father you have a particular brilliance in the maths and sciences."

So Clark grew to like this idea - in brilliance and science following in his mysterious alien father's footsteps. Mom had told him to have ambitions and do things that would make his Dad proud.

Maybe he could.

He decided he wanted to get good grades and go into the STEM fields.

But Lara didn't just help him with neurology and language during this first period of time. And Martha also helped with the rest.

* * *

"So. Personal improvement. Let's talk about it," said Lara at the kitchen counter one morning. And she and Martha just sat there and looked at him at the island, chins in their hands. "What's one thing you've always wanted to improve on yourself?"

"Well… I've always wanted to try out for a sport."

"That will come," said Lara firmly, "with better physical control. What about something we could do right now?"

Clark was stumped. "I… guess I've never thought about myself that much? I… well." He blushed. "I've always wanted to ask out Lana Lang."

"... Oh. Courting!" said Lara after a moment of thought, brightening.

"She was accessing her database," Clark clarified as Martha stared.

"What is she like?" Lara asked excitedly.

"She's… the girl next door. A really sweet bookworm in lots of sweaters. Lives with her wealthy aunt. Very popular at school," said Clark, blushing.

"The good girl," said Martha secretively to Lara, smiling warmly. "Clark's had a crush on her for ages."

"Mom!" said Clark indignantly.

"What? It's true!" Martha grinned, and Clark realized he liked that look on her face. Hadn't seen it in a while.

"... It is," he admitted. "But… I always get sick and clumsy around her. Nerves, I think." He deflated.

"... Does she wear meteor rock?" Lara asked suddenly, intently.

"... Actually, her necklace is green. It could have meteor rock in it," Clark realized distantly, frowning. "She wears it all the time."

"So tell her to take it off!" said Lara excitedly.

"How? What do I tell her, that I have an irrational hatred for her necklace?" said Clark, bewildered.

"Tell her you're allergic to meteor rock." Lara shrugged, smiling. "That being around it makes you sick. It's kind of true. Ask her to put the necklace in her pocket."

"Hey… that could work!" said Clark, brightening. Then he frowned.

"What's wrong?" Martha asked.

"I just… I don't know, I always feel like a freak around people I like," Clark admitted. "Like if they knew who I was… what I could do…" He frowned, looking away.

"Clark," said Martha firmly, "look at me." Clark looked up slowly, hesitant. "To the people who matter, it won't matter. Your abilities are incredible gifts, and you never use them for bad things. You're so human and loving. If someone can't see that… that's their problem. Just let them be, respect their wishes, and go separate ways. Besides, I think some people might surprise you."

"Am I a freak?" said Lara sharply. "Were we all freaks?"

"... No," Clark admitted. "I just… how do I draw a line between telling everyone my abilities and telling no one?"

"Tell the people you trust. Use your discretion," said Martha simply. "If Lana at some point makes that list… good for her."

"Until then, make good explanation excuses," Lara suggested.

"Dad would usually be here to give me this talk," said Clark quietly, and there was a pregnant pause as he looked down. "... He's never coming back, is he?"

"... No," Martha admitted, her voice a little hoarse.

So Clark tried doing the human thing - he just relaxed and let himself feel.

Tears filled his eyes. He suddenly started breathing really hard. Dad was gone. 'Never coming back' gone. And Clark's life had moved on without him. And he felt guilty for that, even though he knew in that moment it was irrational.

Martha rushed around the island and hugged him.

"... I miss him," said Clark.

"... So do I," said Martha. "But in many ways, you're so much like him." She leaned back and smiled, her eyes watering.

"I feel guilty," Clark admitted. "That I'm moving on without him and he won't get to see it."

"Oh, he's watching, Clark," said Martha. "And it's what he'd want."

Clark stood back, sniffed a little bit, shoved his hands shyly in his pockets and stared at the floor. Lara was silent, solemn and sad.

"You know," said Martha suddenly, "Lana's parents died in the meteor shower when she was three."

Clark froze.

"The meteor shower that wasn't your fault," Lara reminded him gently, and he relaxed a little.

"I was thinking… maybe she could connect with the loss of your father better than anyone," said Martha quietly.

* * *

Clark approached Lana Lang's house shyly after super-speeding over. Lana was sitting on the porch with tea. She looked up and smiled, and Clark's heart skipped a beat.

"Clark Kent," she said, wrinkling her nose playfully in surprise. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Lana - who is it?" Lana's Aunt Nell rushed out and paused. She was a garden club real estate sort of person. She eyed Clark up and down. "And what are you doing here?" she asked suspiciously.

"Uh - wanted to talk to Lana?" said Clark, nonplussed. "Is… that a crime?"

Lana visibly suppressed a smile.

Clark was already a little blunter than he used to be.

Aunt Nell huffed, tutted, but walked back inside. Clark walked up onto the porch, approached - and winced. "I'm, uh… allergic to the meteor rock in your necklace," he admitted, as sure enough it glowed green. "Being around it makes me sick. Do you mind, uh…?"

"Oh, of course!" said Lana immediately, stowing the pendant necklace away in her pocket. The symptoms went away. Clark relaxed… and slowly sat down next to her on the porch swing, feeling embarrassed, shy, hopeful, butterfly - lots of things.

"That's, uh - why I never talked to you more," Clark admitted.

"You should have told me sooner! We could have talked!" said Lana, chipper and enthusiastic.

"Yeah," said Clark, smiling shyly, his throat dry. "Sorry about that."

"You're forgiven," said Lana mischievously, smiling. "I like the glasses."

"Oh… thanks." He adjusted his glasses. "They need some new outfits to go with them - so I'm told." He shrugged, smiling. Lana laughed.

"That would be good," she admitted. "Your mother's really grown that farm, hasn't she? I'm sorry about your father," she added sympathetically.

"... Thanks. That's actually why I wanted to talk. I don't want to make presumptions, but I thought… maybe…"

"That if anyone could understand, it would be me," said Lana coldly, stiffening.

"... Yeah…" Clark took a deep breath and pushed on. "It's just - I feel like he should be there. You know? For all the big milestones. But he won't be. And… I'm moving on without him, and I know I shouldn't, but I feel guilty and terrible."

The words came tumbling out all at once.

Lana nodded, looking down. "... My parents weren't there for any of mine," she said quietly. "And… I had to move on. Even though I didn't want to. In some ways I feel like I never really have."

Clark kept feeling like he was screwing up - something wasn't connecting - these were weird responses.

"And… I know I should move on, but I just feel…" He was oddly trying to justify himself.

"Sometimes I dream about my parents," said Lana, her eyes distant. "That they come to pick me up from school instead of Nell. And they're not dead, they're just really late. So I get in the car, and we drive back to my real life in Metropolis. That's usually when I wake up. And for a moment I'm totally happy… until I realize I'm still alone.

"See what I mean about not moving on?"

"Do you think I will?" Clark asked hesitantly.

"I know you'll try," said Lana, still not looking at him. "That's all we can do. That necklace… it's made from a piece of the meteor rock that killed my parents. Nell gave it to me the day she adopted me. She said sometimes life is painful, sometimes it's beautiful - but most of the time it's both."

Clark was silent. Not out of poignancy. Out of awkwardness.

"I heard you made the cheerleading squad. It surprised me," he said.

"You don't think I'd make a good cheerleader?" said Lana heatedly.

"I didn't say that! It's just… you always seemed to love reading and writing. The… preppy cheerleader thing… it's awesome that you're doing it, but it just surprised me, that's all."

"Tell her she's versatile," said Lara in his ear suddenly.

"You're very… versatile," said Clark, trying for a smile.

"Sometimes people can surprise you," said Lana, stiffening again. "I happen to think I'm natural cheerleader material." She seemed oddly defensive, proud of it.

Clark talked for a few more minutes and then he went home with a lot weighing heavily on his mind.

* * *

He and Lara explained it to Martha back at the Kent farm.

"... Did I do something wrong?" Clark asked.

"... No. Lana sounds like a lot of teenagers," said Martha carefully over cups of tea at the kitchen table. Lara's hologram sat beside her. "She's… trying to be someone she's not, maybe her mother, defensive and self righteous over it. She's self focused and only interested in other people's problems in the context of her own. She kept turning the conversation back to herself."

"Lana is -!" Clark defended heatedly, standing.

"Clark," said Lara, concerned. "What part about what Martha said rings untrue to your first real conversation with Lana Lang?"

Clark sat back down slowly. "... I finally get a conversation with her and it's such a let-down," he realized. "She's… not who I thought she was."

"Maybe you were expecting an angel," Martha suggested. "Idealizing people, Clark… it's never a good idea."

"That is true," said Lara sympathetically.

"I just… I feel like I've been so focused on Lana all my life… I don't know who I am without her," Clark admitted, sinking into a stupor, his heart heavy. "I wish there was something I could do to help her, but I don't think she'll let me. And now I find out she's… not who I thought she was. After all this time."

"Maybe we can explore that together," said Lara, smiling. "Who is Clark Kent? What does he want from a relationship?

"After that we can pick out your new outfit update. Really finish up the new and improved Clark Kent."

"It would be better than moping," said Martha with warm, gentle humor when Clark remained silent. "And focusing on heartache."

"... Good point," said Clark, and he became determined. "Out with the old, in with the new. Not thinking about Lana or old feelings anymore.

"We even have more money for the outfits."

* * *

So Clark talked about himself with Lara and Martha for several days, and they asked him eager questions. "I want to get to know you," Lara in particular said excitedly.

Clark learned some things about himself as well.

That he valued being different more than he'd always thought he had - that he admired uniqueness, and maybe even wanted to be unique himself. Intellectual independence was important to him, and he was more opinionated than he'd thought - he had firmly progressive ideals. He was stubborn but different. He hated boredom. He loved both being with people, traveling, and relaxing at home. He admired both art and science.

He was rational, open-minded, curious for information and new ideas. He could be objective in judgment, above emotions. He could be egotistical and defensive in his ideals if he wasn't careful. He was funny but not judgmental, very honest, amiable and a good friend, and he enjoyed people. He was humanitarian and wanted to see everybody happy, and though he could seem detached at first he had a stubbornly loyal heart.

He needed independence, loved the unusual, and could sometimes enjoy debate and arguing. Nonetheless, he was kind, easygoing, slow to take offense, and honest. He hated being boring almost as much as he hated being bored, perhaps the root of many of his insecurities.

He was spiritual, intuitive, and compassionate. His ideas extended into imagination, ethics, and even religion - he was fascinated by the idea of something more. He immediately attached to people who needed help and became invested in helping them. His stubbornness again came through here.

He could work hard for an ideal, and had a surprising artistic bent. People felt guided by him on an emotional and ethical level. In trying situations, he sometimes even hid behind stoicism and humor. He hid strong emotions and a need for love and harmony behind stoicism and humor.

He was refined deep down, as absurd as that sounded to his own ears. He could be touchy and moody. He was committed to others. He was protective, but could be critical or nagging at times, something he had to watch out for.

He was calm, steadfast, and could be charming along with funny. Between his protective instincts and his natural calmness and ethical center, he made people feel safe. Stubborn again, sometimes jealous, and with a natural love for luxury.

At heart, he was also humble, open, honest in his dealings, charming, easy to like, a bit fierce in his protective instincts, and pure in ethics and trust - but also in mental toughness. This, he had gotten from growing up on the Kent farm with his parents. (Another pang. He wondered if they'd ever go away when he thought of his father.)

"What about in romance?" Lara asked. "What do you want? Say… what are your ideal dates or relationships?"

"Well… I would like for things to be different a lot, not the same thing every single day. I want romance, passion, imagination - maybe reflecting my deeper Kryptonian emotions. I want security. And I want… maybe something a bit traditional. Marriage, a warm home, kids."

He smiled a little.

"I value selflessness," he said, "humor, ethics, people who dare to be themselves and fight for ideals they believe in. I also value someone who proves genuinely trustworthy - especially over time.

"That's why… I mean, Lana acted self focused, over serious and self righteous, and she won't be herself. She never listened, and I'd like someone who would listen, and understand. I don't know if I can trust her. Hence… the disillusionment. Of course… I have to work on myself, show being more trustworthy to a human. That would have to go both ways."

"That's very mature of you," Martha congratulated him warmly, smiling a little.

Clark smiled a little quirkily too. "As for dates…? Maybe a wine tasting or a nice restaurant - when I'm older, I mean. A coffee shop. A travel trip together. Some really interesting techno place. An art or science exhibition. Someplace curious, like stargazing, ice skating, or an aquarium. A concert or a sports game would be cool, too. Maybe even something a bit more romantic and relaxing, like a... I don't know, a bath together, candles, roses, that kind of a thing."

"You like the trappings," said Martha, smiling wryly.

"Yeah," said Clark enthusiastically. "Romance and passion both. In my own quiet way... I guess I do."

Lara's eyes sparked. "What do you say… we go shopping?" she asked mischievously.

* * *

So Martha (and Lara from Clark's earpiece on his glasses) went shopping with Clark in unusually nice Smallville stores, with the recent Kent surplus, for some new outfits to go with the new glasses.

Some of the clothes Clark chose included pull-over sweaters, leather bracelets, and soft cotton t shirts. He also chose dark washed jeans and long wool coats with lots of buttons, mostly open and in soft grey or muted colors. He got some scuffed slip on shoes from a thrift store. When he felt tough and masculine, he went for ripped jeans and motorcycle jackets, which Mom insisted he looked very handsome in.

He got a wave-over black haircut to go with the rest, his look a weird and unique blend of James Dean and more nerdy and feminine. People had always told him he was good looking… but now he was interesting looking to go with it. And nondescript enough with his glasses to go unnoticed.

Looking at himself in the mirror, he decided he liked that.


	3. With Acceptance of Two Different Mothers

Author's Notes: Somehow, releasing a chapter about sex on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day would have felt strange, so just in case, this is going up today.

Clark and his embarrassment struggled with me every step of the way for this chapter, which is why it's a bit on the shorter side. There are certain things he emotionally can't describe even to himself in detail yet. That will start to get better by the end of the chapter.

I hope you still enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Three: With the Acceptance of Two Different Mothers

"Time for training in physical control," said Lara up in the barn loft next. "This involves high brain control - a part of the brain humans don't have - in even the finest muscles of your body. Compartmentalize this off and you can keep it up constantly, so that you'll be just like a human unless you turn it off - though you will still be nearly impossible to injure."

"Handy," Clark admitted.

"Now, this will be easier than it would be if your parents were both from the warrior caste," said Lara. "Your physical body is not quite as pronounced in impossible strength."

"... Caste?"

"Oh, right. Each Kryptonian is assigned, not by birth but by ability, to a certain caste. They each have an assigned role in Kryptonian society based on their skill set. I was from the artist and scribe caste, so you also have the blood of an artist and a writer in your veins; your father was from the scientific caste, as your talent and ambition in math and science clearly shows."

"I thought we were all warriors," said Clark, confused.

"We are. But everyone needs to do something, a logical role in society, do they not? We did not spend all our time fighting," said Lara. "Even the nobles logically did work according to their abilities. It is healthy to keep busy and to work one's mind and body."

"So… how was the warrior caste special from everyone else?" Clark asked, fascinated.

"They were the front line people. The commanders and leaders," said Lara. "Now. Physical control. Are you ready to begin? You must master this exercise I will teach you with every part of your body in turn. Even your eyes and… and I don't have to be around for this… your reproductive organs."

Clark and Lara blushed deep red at the same time in positively genetic fashion.

And so Clark began.

* * *

The training went along relatively fine - the exercise was time consuming but not particularly complicated. But a certain part of it left Clark interested in a very embarrassing thing. So embarrassing he could not ask either of his mothers for help.

He looked up on his upstairs bedroom computer what human male reproductive organs looked like. He hadn't been spending much time in there lately, it was still decorated with the space images he was no longer quite as actively curious and unknowledgeable about, but after he'd taken off his glasses and told Lara he was "practicing" it was the only place that was safe. Clark just wanted to make sure everything seemed to look… and work… the same. He knew he looked the same everywhere else - though he did have powers and unusual bodily warmth to protect from frigid Kryptonian temperatures, humans and Kryptonians still shared the same base DNA structure - from gym locker rooms if nothing else. But…

Well, he'd always been a little shy, with the unlucky result that he actually didn't know about this last question. Did he look the same as everyone else… down there…?

So he clicked through the images. Everything seemed to look and work the same. He breathed a little easier. He was safe.

But the pictures also brought up… other feelings. Weird, unexpected feelings… down there. He clicked through them, morbidly fascinated.

… Was that normal?

So he clicked through the pictures of female organs. Lara had said he wasn't quite grown enough to expect heat vision when he felt arousal yet, but nothing unusual there. He felt aroused when he looked at pictures of female anatomy as well.

So he felt the same… when he looked at a picture of a man… and when he looked at a picture of a woman.

Clark decided to try something.

He'd already had to masturbate to master physical self control. Horribly humiliating? Yes. Necessary? Also yes.

So he reached down there, and he tried again. First thinking of a woman. Then thinking of a man.

He got off both times. No difference.

Shit.

* * *

Clark tried to tell himself for several days that this meant absolutely nothing at all. Sexuality was weird and fluid. It probably didn't mean anything. Basic instinct. Or maybe it was a Kryptonian thing.

It didn't have to mean anything at all.

But he didn't tell Lara or Martha about it.

He started noticing people when he walked around Smallville - more than he had before. He noticed when a guy was attractive, and when it aroused him. But he noticed the same thing when he looked at an attractive woman.

… What did that mean?

Clark didn't exactly have a blueprint for this. He'd grown up in a Christian farming family raised by a former football player in Smallville, Kansas. And he was honestly scared shitless.

He wasn't sure how, whether he was unconsciously seeking them out or just noticing them more, but he suddenly started seeing coming out stories everywhere - and identifying with the repression, even unconscious repression, inside them. Was the universe conspiring against him? Why were coming out stories suddenly everywhere?

Then the inevitable happened.

"Clark," said Martha calmly one night over dinner, "Lara and I would like to know why you've been seeking out coming of age stories in bookstores and library." She continued chewing, not looking up, perfectly casual.

Clark froze. Lara appeared as a hologram standing by the table and smiled hesitantly.

"I… um…" He had no idea where to go from here. Nothing in life had prepared him for this.

"You should know," said Lara, purposefully bright and helpful, "sexualities are all accepted on Krypton! Scientifically speaking it was easy to figure out that sexuality is inherent, and from there being accepting of it between consenting adults was only the logical decision. Because of a piece of technology accessible in the ship's computer called the Kryptonian birthing matrix - two people's DNA is added to a piece of advanced alien technology and a baby is nurtured for nine months inside it - it is even possible for homosexual couples to have children. For this reason especially, the hot button issue humans call gay marriage was widely accepted on Krypton.

"And having gay sex is no different from having straight sex! With perfect control like you're learning, the impossibility for risk is exactly the same, and -"

"Okay, Lara. I think that's enough," said Martha, warmly amused.

"Oh. Right." Lara cleared her throat and immediately quieted down from her bubbly chatter.

"... You know, Clark," said Martha, as Clark sat there still perfectly frozen even in emotional expression as only a Kryptonian could be. "It really is okay. I don't care who else you tell, but your mothers should probably know."

Clark relaxed. "So it's okay… if I think I might be? I mean, I've started noticing physical attraction to both guys and girls while doing these exercises, and I don't know what that means and it's confusing -" It all came out at once clumsily. Clark paused awkwardly. "And… yeah."

He fell into an embarrassed silence.

"... It's called bisexuality. Look up gay rights issues," said Martha stoically, going back to her food. "Bi meaning two. You can have relationships with both. And it's perfectly normal and there's nothing wrong with it. So Lara says, you can even still have kids either way -"

"Assuming you trust your spouse with your secret. Which you should," said Lara helpfully.

"And there are plenty of places here on Earth to get a gay marriage certificate, if that's what you decide on," Martha finished calmly like nothing of import had happened.

"... Really?" Clark perked up.

"Really," said Martha simply, still eating. "Finish eating your food."

Clark went back to eating with some amount of relief. That… hadn't been so bad. "I… don't think some people in Smallville would share your opinion," he admitted tentatively.

Martha's eating paused ever so briefly. "Well, I'm from Metropolis City. Maybe not. Like with your powers, decide you trust whoever you tell. Use discretion, that's all. There are people worth trusting in Smallville. Or, if someone reveals themselves, it's okay to reveal yourself in turn. Or, if someone's not from around here… again, the reaction might be different.

"Smallville is a good, warm place, but it's small. Small-minded, sometimes, too."

Clark nodded. "... What would Dad have thought?" he asked, looking down at his plate, troubled.

At this, both Martha and Lara looked up, wide-eyed - realizing the biggest problem. That masculine Smallville Jonathan wasn't here to accept Clark, and he never would be.

"Clark, I don't think he'd have known what to think at first," said Martha, and then she placed her hand over Clark's. "But I know he'd have loved you anyway. No matter what. And you know that, too. Don't you?"

"... Yeah," Clark admitted, nodding, and he relaxed fully. "Thanks, you guys," he said, looking from one mother to the other.

They smiled at him.

"Your next job," said Lara officially, "is to let go of your embarrassment in everything to do with sex and sexuality. These finishing exercises should be perfect for that."

"Goodie," Clark muttered, going back to his food.

But over time, as Lara had promised, they actually did help - a lot. Clark eventually bucked up and decided he was a Kryptonian and Kryptonians didn't get embarrassed over perfectly reasonable, natural things.

When he approached ideas of sex and sexuality as a Kryptonian… it helped with those particular physical control exercises a lot. He slowly started paying attention to the details of how sex, masturbation, and arousal felt - instead of mentally skirting around the issue.

Like Martha had suggested, he ended up looking up gay rights and even gay sex. With the acceptance of two different mothers, he finally started feeling better.


	4. Abilities

Chapter Four: Abilities

And finally, Lara gave her son the complete power low-down.

"That's what I'm calling it!" she said brightly, standing in front a holographic blackboard with Complete Power Low-Down at the top in big letters. "Look, I even used human image! My database and image searches are improving, yes?"

"Yeah, Mom, it's… great," said Clark weakly, still genuinely smiling and oddly endeared.

"Good. Now! To business! You have a series of powers that will reveal themselves to you as you become older and stronger and as you go through puberty. By the time you are an adult, you will have all the powers you will ever have. The only thing you already have, aside from supernatural speed and strength, is invulnerable skin - invulnerable to multi-ton hits, to bullet fire, to fire itself, to electric shock, a body that is invulnerable to most toxins. The rest will come to you over time.

"I can help you through each thing as it comes, but you should know what they all are and about when they'll come."

And she listed off his powers.

All of them.

It took a long time.

Clark's head was swimming by the end. Flying? Fire from his eyes? Ice from his breath? Sharpened senses? It didn't help that there were no definite milestones for when anything would crop up. It was all just "around this point in your life."

"Question?" he said uneasily, raising his hand.

"Yes?" said Lara.

"... What if one of these things happens for the first time in a really public place?" Clark asked.

"Then you are screwed," said Lara matter of factly.

"Oh," said Clark. "Great."

No way that could go wrong.

* * *

Clark started taking on hobbies, at the encouragement of his mothers.

Knowing he was interested in STEM fields, he decided to join the local junior robotics team. Robotics involved both mechanical and electrical engineering as well as extensive math calculation; teams built robots and used them to compete against each other with remote controls in a variety of fights and tests. The best built and best operated robot won. There were whole bus rides to other cities for competitions and everything.

It was a national pastime.

Clark joined the Smallville junior robotics team for the first time that summer, walking into a big empty classroom at the high school. The desks had been pushed aside to make room for the mess of mechanics in the center. The other guys and girls in the room looked up - and stared.

Clark raised his hand, smiling uneasily. "Hi, I'm the, uh - the new kid? Eighth grader, Clark Kent?"

"Mr Kent!" said the robotics coach warmly, coming forward and taking his hand. "Come right in. Let's show you the ropes, try you out, see how you do."

A few of the girls giggled and whispered together over him as he knelt down on the floor with the rest of the group.

"I believe they find you attractive," said Lara curiously in his ear. Clark looked up with wide, surprised eyes - and then tried smiling.

More blushing and frantic giggles.

Huh. Well that was an interesting ability, thirteen-year-old Clark Kent thought.

Clark proved to be a natural hand at robotics. He was better at behind the scenes than at operating and putting all the little wires into place, capable of advanced, wicked-fast calculations and incredibly complex designs.

His team started calling him The Idea Guy.

One of his closest friends on the team, Samuel, began letting him borrow his science fiction novels. Clark read, at first curious just for new information and to dig his head into the kinds of science humans found fantastical, moreover into a type of reading humans found nerdy…

But he would form a life-long love for the genre. He loved complex sci-fi that made him think.

* * *

"Do you still want to try football?" Martha asked Clark one day that summer. "In high school, I mean?" They were having breakfast in the kitchen.

"I've been thinking about that," Clark admitted. "I've decided… no. First, because I'd have to wait."

"A true teenager response," said Martha, smiling wryly, and Clark laughed.

"But… there are other reasons," said Clark, becoming more serious. "A lot of my reasons for playing football are gone. To impress my Dad. To impress Lana. And… I mean, I get the feeling the football locker room environment is pretty homophobic? The most homophobic in Smallville, and that can sometimes be saying something.

"I don't know if I want to encourage that, or participate in it, or try to fit in there.

"But I do want to play a sport, and alright, I'll admit that I do want it to be kind of masculine and impressive. I've been looking up different sports available in the area, and… since we have more money for equipment now…"

"Oh, here we go," said Martha, in reality not bothered in the slightest.

"What about extreme skateboarding and BMX bike riding?" Clark suggested, his blue eyes lit almost mischievously.

Martha and Lara agreed - Clark had more chance of hurting the bike or the skating rink than either of them had of hurting Clark - so Clark started getting lessons with a coach in each kind of sport and signed up to compete in a number of events. He tried it…

And honestly, it was fun.

He hadn't really thought how much his football focus had been limiting him. People still admired bikers, for one thing. And even with his former poorer control, he had much less chance of hurting anyone else in either of these sports.

And they were awesome sports! He'd always loved casual skateboarding, but soaring through the air, complex flips across the ring… shit, there was nothing like that feeling. Or the vrooming bike underneath him as he sped and took hills and turns too fast and soared up into the air.

In those moments, he actually could see himself flying. He wasn't scared in those moments.

He started packing easy-to-burst ketchup packages underneath his clothes for when he fell really badly during races and competitions. One of them would burst; he would take the packet back out at a speed too invisible to see; it would look like he was bleeding and his mother wrote out a specific note always asking that he immediately be hurried home after an injury.

Clark learned how to fake being hurt really, really well.

One of Clark's crowning achievements in both sports - which took most of his abilities out of the equation - besides a natural bodily grace was how firm and calm he was, how in control, in every single move and every single competition. He could react lightning fast and perfectly calmly to every single unexpected turn of events.

People started saying he had ice in his veins. Nothing ever registered on his face except concentration during races and competitions - and once he got the hang of it, he almost never messed up accidentally.

* * *

Clark also found a part time job.

Scooney's was a sort of indoor play park in central Smallville. It was a vast, interconnected set of rooms that could be entered for a high price but included an arcade, a bowling alley, and a skating rink. It even had an in-shop ice cream stand. Lots of screaming kids went there, but Clark didn't mind screaming kids.

He thought upon reflection that he liked the aura of normal fun and human energy Scooney's might provide.

He told the boss, Jason, an overweight guy in his mid-thirties, almost that very thing during his interview in the office that took up Scooney's back room.

"Well, you seem friendly. Hell you're Jonathan Kent's kid; he was always friendly." Clark swallowed and looked down. Jason was still squinting at Clark's resume, frowning. "And it's the right reason for wanting to work here…

"Under farming land rules, I can hire anyone twelve or over. Same rules as with driving. Farm country just works different, I guess.

"Alright," said Jason, holding out his hand, "let's give it a shot."

Clark stuck out his hand, smiled, and shook Jason's sweaty palm.

He started out scooping ice cream for the passing kids, and proved so friendly and calm in dealing with the hordes of kids and the constant messes that he was usually put on ice cream duty. Everyone else hated ice cream duty, everyone at Scooney's, but in his own quiet Clark actually enjoyed it. Kids were messy, but they were endearing. They had so much emotional energy, optimism, natural expressiveness.

If you let it help you, it was an invigorating sort of environment to work in.

"Clark likes the rugrats," Zalia would just tell her coworkers, shrugging. They all thought Clark was weird, but no one ever had an open problem with him.

After all, nobody else wanted ice cream duty.

"The great thing about you," said Jason, "is that you're friendly without being chipper and condescending. I think you actually like those little fucking kids." He sounded bewildered.

"Uh… thank you, sir? Wasn't that the point?" said Clark.

Jason laughed, clapped him on the back, and walked off across the stucko black, neon glowing floor and walls, screams and chattering filtering through in the background.

Jason was an interesting person to have as Scooney's employer. He grumbled and complained a lot and didn't like getting his huge girth up from his desk. But Clark would watch Jason be tough but patient with the kids he encountered, and suspected that maybe Jason liked kids a little more than he let on.

* * *

With his license and his new Scooney's money - which didn't have to go to the Kent farm, because that was thriving on its own - Clark bought himself a car.

It was not a good car, precisely. It was an old Mustang from a neighbor, and not the nice, well kept up kind. Instead, it was the rusty old beaten tin can kind that was always breaking down. It stalled endless times and of course it was a stick shift…

But he'd chosen it on purpose.

Clark wanted a project, something to fix up. So whenever he needed to work away at a problem, he would go down to the barn floor where his Mustang was and work on it, with the hood up or underneath the car.

His Dad had used to work on problems like this, and it made him feel closer to his father. He would blast rock music, which he had grown to love.

He bought himself a set of big, good-quality headphones and wore them around with his new wave-over haircut, his new glasses, in his sweaters or motorcycle jackets and jeans. He would blast rock music and stroll anywhere. He had a car, it was true.

Clark just liked walking. As someone who could run faster than the speed of sound, he could confirm that walking was vastly underrated.

* * *

Before Earl left to work at the Luthor Corp plant newly built - complete with unoccupied Luthor Manor newly built - Clark got the farm handyman to finally teach him how to play the guitar.

"You always broke my strings," said Earl, scowling at him and chewing out in the hot sun of the farm one afternoon.

"Just… give me a chance?" Clark suggested, wincing but smiling winningly, bouncing on his feet a little. His strength control was better now, he knew.

So Earl taught him the guitar. Perhaps because of his mother's blood, Clark was a quick study when it came to an art like music. Knowing his mother had been a scribe he began trying his hand at poetry. It went… surprisingly not terribly.

Of course, it helped that he rented out books of human poetry and had Lara around to teach him the intricacies of Kryptonian poetry. He found a way to blend the rigid mechanics and quiet emotion of one with the free flow of emotional thought in the other, forming an interplanetary poetry and songwriting all his own.

That was when Clark graduated to full-on music geek. He formed a collection of thousands of songs.

He needed inspiration, after all, for his playing and writing.

* * *

Deciding - uncomfortably, at first - to take Dad's place in the kitchen, he started drinking coffee. It was a fast addiction, and he moved from there into tea.

And he moved from there into going on a concerted mission to discovering his sweet tooth. He found a natural love for matcha green tea caramels (weirdly specific) and black licorice (not as specific). They started filling his pockets, the drawers of his loft or bedroom, the glove box of his car.

Slowly, his loft and bedroom had begun to change - as always happened naturally - away from astronomy, nonfiction, and farm equipment and into reflecting his new interests.

But he wasn't quite done changing just yet.

He decided to adopt a couple of dogs.

Clark was a dog person, hopelessly a dog person, and not the small dog kind of person either. He went to the local shelter and adopted two cocker spaniels. He was led into the back, and he'd only been intent on choosing one…

But they'd both clung together, looking up at him so hopefully and wagging their tails at him. They were practically begging to be taken together.

"Oh, what the hell," he sighed, and adopted them both, taking them both home in the Mustang with him. (It only stalled once on the way home, a true sign of good fortune.)

"Clark!" Martha yelled, exasperated, seeing him come in with two panting, wagging cocker spaniels. Clark was sheepish, but not really apologetic.

Martha got used to them. Their names were Trixie and Mix. They were nervous and shy at first, but Clark found it rewarding, nurturing them back silently into a more loving and trusting state of mind.

They adored him.

* * *

He was weirdly nervous right before he was about to go back to middle school.

"I don't know why," he told his two mothers, holographic and physical, in the kitchen one night, the dogs contented at their feet. "It's not like I'm going to high school, or even meeting Lana again after some big breakup. I mean, I'm over Lana, and she was never into me. But it's just… well…"

"A lot's happened," said Martha sympathetically.

"You even see people differently - on a literal, physical, sexual level," Lara added. "Girls and boys both."

"Yeah. I guess it's just that a lot's changed," said Clark, troubled.

Lara smiled and placed one of her electric hands over his. It was times like these he was reminded that face smiling at him wasn't really alive.

"Well," Martha sighed, sitting back. "Change has happened. And you'll just have to meet it when it comes."

Eighth grade was when Clark would meet Pete again after his great summer away in self-discovery.

It was also when he would first meet Chloe Sullivan.


	5. Part Two: More Than Friends - Vintage

Part Two: More Than Friends - Chapter One: Vintage Fashion and Mustangs

Clark met Pete again his first day of eighth grade. He saw Pete talking to somebody, smiled, and walked over. "Pete," he said from right behind him.

Pete whirled around - saw Clark and his eyes widened. "Damn, man, you got an upgrade!" was the first thing he said, impressed.

"So - totally free from all shutting yourself off from the world forever?" Pete confirmed as they walked across campus toward the main junior high building.

"Yup. Mentally healthy and cold avoidance free," Clark confirmed.

"Glad to hear it. So what have you been up to? I mean - what's with the new look? It's awesome, don't get me wrong! But it's a pretty…"

"Radical difference?" Clark finished, smiling wryly. He told Pete - maybe not about the aliens or the sexuality, but about some of the other things he'd been up to this summer. Discovering his allergy to meteor rock, talking to and overcoming his crush on Lana, his new job and car, his new hobbies, the vast expansion of his mother's farm.

"Definitely an upgrade," Pete confirmed, grinning. "Now - Clark, man, I trust you and all - but I've gotta see some of this stuff for myself. For all I know, you could be having a psychotic break." He clapped Clark on the shoulder.

Clark grinned. "You just want a ride on the car and the bike."

"Hell yeah I do!" said Pete excitedly.

Clark laughed as they entered the middle school main building together. There was his biggest friendship preserved.

* * *

A few weeks into the semester, a new student appeared in class.

"Class, this is Chloe Sullivan," said the teacher, standing a small, pixie-like blonde girl with short, spiky hair in front of homeroom. She was pretty, Clark was sure everyone noticed. "She's a transfer from Metropolis City. Chloe, would you like to tell us something about yourself?"

"Uh… well, my father works at the new Luthor Corp plant, I know nothing about country life, I'm intent on becoming an investigative reporter at the Daily Planet - the important issues kind, not the tabloids kind - and I formally protest class introductions," said Chloe matter of factly.

Clark snorted and smiled a little. No one else seemed to know what to say.

"Mr Kent?" Clark perked up. "Please introduce Miss Sullivan around school for her first day."

Pete nudged Clark and grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. Clark snorted and shook his head. "Shut up," he muttered, but he was smiling. "Yes, sir," he said louder to the teacher.

Chloe took her seat on the other side of Clark. "So - intent on hitting on me?" she asked archly, but Clark could tell she was being a little bit playful.

"Ignore my friend. He's challenged," said Clark. He saw Pete grinning and making hand signs behind him, and he shoved Pete's hand down quickly. "Pete. At least try to pretend for a minute, okay?" said Clark, both amused and annoyed.

Pete sat back in clear satisfaction.

Chloe was hiding a smile behind her hand.

* * *

Clark showed Chloe around campus during lunch - in his own way.

"And that right there is our very fascinating metal shop building, where we all mold incomprehensible lumps of steel," he said, pointing. "That's the science building, and that's the history building. Interesting fact, together they collect so much disinterest that rumor has it people become more easily distracted just by walking in their general direction."

"Like a force field of boredom," said Chloe, who was grinning. "I can definitely get behind that theory."

"Those are the lunch tables," said Clark, pointing out the window still. "They're the only actually interesting part of campus. If you look long enough, Sarah Chocklin will at least once every lunch period try to blow a bubble too big, get in her hair, and have to pick it out."

"Ugh," said Chloe, who was laughing. "You're so rough on your own school."

"What can I say? It's school."

"Fair enough," said Chloe.

"Oh, look," said Clark suddenly, pointing, "authentic, historical white and colored water fountains."

"Really?!" Chloe gasped. "Oh, I have to get a picture, can we go there?!"

But Clark was laughing. Chloe realized she'd been had and shoved him in the shoulder. "You're so mean!" she grinned.

"How far back in time do you think we've gone?!" Clark asked incredulously.

"Oh, yeah? So you live in an ultra-modern city townhouse, do you?" Chloe challenged.

"I live on a farm," Clark admitted. "With my Mom, who adopted me."

"Like an Amish person?!" said Chloe, clearly thrilled. "Oh, I have to go there and see that!"

"Okay. I'll drive you there after school," said Clark easily, shrugging.

"You have a car?" Chloe looked bewildered.

"And a job. Farm country rules work differently," said Clark.

"It is like an Amish community," Chloe decided. "Exactly like an Amish community. By the way, where is the nearest Daily Planet stand and coffee place? I have to keep in touch with civilization during my great journey into 1950's Amish country."

"Right," said Clark slowly, amused and endeared despite himself, as they walked away.

Chloe kept looking him over the same way the girls in robotics club did. Clark was pretty sure she was checking him out. And free from Lana, he was definitely checking her out.

So they both kind of knew from the beginning there was already a tension between them, however much they joked around.

* * *

The Mustang stalled three times during shifts on the dusty, bumpy way out of town to the Kent farm.

"Sorry about this," Clark winced, embarrassed. "I am safe to operate tractors, so I promise it's the car, not me."

"You know, Clark," said Chloe, who Clark was just noticing had a bow in her hair, "I plan on getting a Volkswagen Bug when I drive, really brightly colored one, too, but I plan on getting mine… you know… new."

"That's great, Chloe, but new costs money," said Clark.

Chloe's eyes widened as she realized her mistake. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to -" she said, horrified.

"It's okay." Clark shrugged it off, smiling and shaking his head. "The Kent farm's a pretty big operation these days, but I told Mom I wanted a car with my own money from my own part time work. I work at this indoor play park called Scooney's - it's this black stucco and neon place with an ice rink and an arcade and a bowling alley and stuff. I scoop out ice cream for kids. Everyone else hates ice cream duty, but I'm a sucker for kids, I guess.

"Same with this car, really. I like problem solving. I like working on it one little piece at a time."

They finally shoved and vroomed back into gear and trundled on back down the road.

"That's… really cool," said Chloe honestly, sounding impressed.

But that was nothing compared to when he showed her the vast, neat farmland and the upstairs loft above the barn.

"Man, this place is all yours? Serious crash pad," she said, grinning as she walked around, looking curiously. Chloe, Clark was starting to realize, was perpetually curious about everything. "You bike?" she asked, pointing at the bike in the corner. "That's refreshing. I'd expect everyone to be obsessed with football around here."

"They are," said Clark. "I find football to be kind of homophobic."

"Oh my God, I'm so with you there," said Chloe fervently. "Sports like biking and roller derby are cool, but football is a brain damaging cult that commits the worst sin - high school popularity. I'm actually very passionate about that. Wait…" She played the last sentence back in her head. "It sounds like the whole homophobic thing matters to you," she finally said.

Clark remembered what Martha had said about people from Metropolis. He decided to take a chance and nodded. "I'm bi," he said quietly, hands in his pockets. "Not many people know, not even Pete, the goof from earlier. So, if you could…?"

"My lips are sealed," Chloe promised immediately. She was smiling, Clark suspected because she'd realized bi meant he liked girls as well as guys.

Refreshingly, that was all that seemed to matter to her.

"Secret accepted," she said, grinning, and Clark realized he already trusted her more than he did Lana Lang. "So… what's the rest of this stuff?" She looked around.

He told her a little bit about some of his other hobbies and interests (she was delighted when she found out he played music and he wrote, even if it was poetry and not articles - Chloe was a keen appreciator of both youthful politics and the arts), and he offered to let her meet his Mom and his rescue dogs a little bit later. He told her about his Dad passing and she listened sympathetically, saying sincerely that she was sorry. In turn, Chloe admitted she had a single parent too - her father, but not her mother. "My Mom bailed," she said, false grinning. "She didn't die. It's horrible, thinking you're not good enough for someone."

She sounded so carefully casual and smiled so big her face must have hurt. Like Clark's stoical mask, that was Chloe's defense mechanism.

"It's her loss," said Clark quietly, serious. "Don't ever think you're not good enough. Especially don't let somebody else decide that."

Chloe's smile faded a little and she looked genuinely touched.

Chloe loved vintage fashion (a perfect mirror to his nerdy James Dean look), bright colors, and exotic candy boxes - she had a major sweet tooth, and in fact tended to "stress-bake." She started making great mounds of food whenever she was upset. Her ultimate hero was historic investigative reporter Nellie Bly.

"She faked mental illness just to get into an old asylum and write a report on the abuses being done there," said Chloe, leaning forward eagerly. "That's the kind of dedication to her beliefs and eye for justice that I want in my career. Somebody has to get the word out, the Daily Planet is Metropolis's biggest newspaper, and that somebody is going to be me."

"In other words, she got herself in lots of trouble," said Clark, smiling.

"Well exactly. If you're not controversial and you're not getting yourself in trouble, Clark, you're not doing it right," said Chloe readily. "I'm thinking about opening a school paper at Smallville High next year. They don't even have one, can you believe that?! Who talks about all the important issues?!

"So what about you? What does the great Clark Kent want to do with his life?" She grinned. "It must be something. I have a sixth sense for guys with a bit of save the world in them," she said, only half teasing, very definite.

"Well, I know I'm good at building, designing, math, and engineering from my time in robotics club," said Clark. "So I think I'd like to go into the STEM fields. And, yeah, use science to help people, make their lives better."

"Ooh, fancy. You know, you probably wouldn't have much job success here in Smallville," said Chloe, amused. "Unless there's a thriving tech industry I'm not aware of?" she added skeptically.

Chloe was direct. As a Kryptonian, Clark decided he liked that. It was easy to deal with.

He laughed a little. "No, I'd have to go back to Metropolis, like you," he said, amused. "For college and a job and everything. I don't mind. Mom says she doesn't want me staying here all my life just because my Dad did. She wants me to - quote-unquote - 'go off and have my own success in life'."

"There's one thing you still haven't explained," said Chloe.

"The interview isn't over?" Clark teased her cheerfully.

Chloe smiled and walked over to the telescope by the window. "You're into astronomy?"

"I used to like stargazing as a little kid," said Clark, walking to the window. "Watching other planets and wondering what life would be like there. My own kind of imaginative game, I guess. I was kind of a weird kid. I loved nonfiction, the one genre no kid ever loves, and -"

He'd half turned back around from the telescope, still speaking, and Chloe surprised him by kissing him right on the lips. Her lips were warm, soft, and dry. She tasted like cherry chapstick. He paused in surprise.

Chloe smiled up at him. "I know you've been thinking about it all day, so I just wanted to get it out of the way with so we can get straight to being friends."

Clark decided to take a chance. "Unless you'd like to be… more than friends?" he asked slowly. "I'm… open to a first date."

Chloe paused in surprise, then laughed her self conscious mask laugh. "Well I just thought - someone like you - you must be -"

"No," said Clark, surprised. "I mean, I used to have a big crush, but… not anymore. That was actually my first kiss."

"Mine too," said Chloe, and she giggled nervously.

Clark smiled - and kissed her back. They slowly hugged each other. The kiss was clumsy, but longer and warmer this time.


End file.
